Coffee & Treats in The Crossings

Yesenia Rivera has three days to singlehandedly bake 425 treats, but you won’t see her break a sweat. In fact, you probably won’t see her at all. Come evening, the seasoned pastry chef will seclude herself in her home kitchen, which she has transformed into a tidy assembly line. She can tell you to the second how long it will take to apply frosting to a cupcake or poke a stick through a cake pop. And, aside from the occasional taste test from her 4-year-old daughter, Rivera shuns a second set of hands. “I can’t imagine delegating any of it. It’s too personal a process for me,” she admits.

For Rivera, every baked treat is a labor of love. She meets with her clients in their homes for hours and pours over recipe options and photo albums of her past creations. She caters to their every ingredient request—as a gluten-free, dairy-free eater herself, she’s no stranger to substitutions, such as bananas for eggs, or coconut oil for butter. And when it comes time to decorate, she literally sets each treat on a pedestal, and decorates it slowly and meticulously. “I think about the person I’m baking for when I’m putting the ingredients together—I pour my heart and soul into it,” Rivera says. But despite rigorous recipe calibration, each treat must pass one final test: if her daughter doesn’t love it, it doesn’t make it out the kitchen door.

The rhythmic whirring of fruit-annihilating blades, punctuated by the crunching of ice and glugging of poured juices, courses through Smoothie King’s health emporium. Guests select from a bountiful selection of made-to-order beverages in seven categories—including Stay Healthy, Trim Down, and Get Energy—each formulated with specific fruit combos to help bulk up muscle or trim down waistlines. The Raspberry Sunrise balances out its tartness with honey, while the exotic Mangosteen Madness showcases the Southeast Asian fruit along with strawberries and papaya. Guests can augment their fruit flavors with one of 11 enhancers, such as a vitamin and calcium blend to strengthen joints, or a 125 mg Caffeine Charge enhancer to temporarily make mowing the lawn less sleep-inducing.

At 6 a.m. every morning, the denizens of Little Havana awaken to the sweet scents that escape from the kitchens of nearby Rico Bakery & Cafe. A local institution for more than 25 years, the charming bakery has earned a dedicated following due to its fresh breads, Cuban and European desserts, and steamy coffee drinks. No item, however, flies off the bakery racks faster than the pastelitos, which come with sweet or savory fillings of coconut, cheese, beef, ham, guava, or piñata candy.

The bakers behind Cupcake.Love.Miami fill their huge menu of desserts with unexpected and creative flavors. Some emulate childhood favorites, such as the PB-and-J-inspired Goober and watermelon Jolly Rancher. Other categories are dedicated to refreshing summer beverages, breakfast staples such as Froot Loops, and seasonal flavors such as pumpkin pie. These flavors take shape as cupcakes, cake pops, or full-grown cakes that can feed up to 95 people and arm as many food catapults.

But no matter what its shape or size, each dessert flaunts a distinct artistic vision with intricate fondants and other toppers. Cupcake.Love.Miami also partners with sister business Sunshine State Cakes to craft custom couture desserts.